La Mesa, CALIFORNIA

Sign of the times.

May 24, 2008 - Training is being developed for staff members at Helix High School, where three teachers in the past 17 months have been accused of having sex with students, including a 43-year-old teacher arrested Sunday.

The school will work with its attorney, insurance carrier and governing board to develop more specific training to address the issue of teachers having sex with students and other criminal and inappropriate conduct.
------------------------
They were not just accused. The teachers are Garry Wilcox, 43, arrested on Sunday for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old female student. Jessica Ashley Kahal, 22, music teacher and band director, sentenced to three years' probation for sex with a 17-year-old male student. Frank Palumbo, 27, assistant band director, sentenced to five years' probation for having sex with a 17-year-old female student.

Neither convicted teacher is a registered sex offender and neither went to jail or prison.
------------------------
TT - It is a shame that the school plans to work with their attorney and the insurance carrier rather than students and parents because it means their main motivation isn't student safety, parental concerns, or morality so much as it is the concern over the prospect of multiple lawsuits, rising insurance rates or even cancellation of their insurance coverage.

The only voice of reason in the article was Jorge Ley, a school psychologist with the County Office of Education, who suggested the possibility of providing students with information “to make sure they're fully aware that you may not think you're being victimized in these situations, but you are a victim.”

Schools in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, are already educating students, using film and training materials available from the Boy Scouts of America that is suitable for 11 years and up. There's good reason for the concern. Sexual abuse of children is a reality and there is very little difference when an adult manipulates a 12-year-old into furtive sex or an adult who allows a 17-year-old to think that they are grown up and loved and wanted and appreciated in order to have furtive sex. The motive is exactly the same.